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Tent village for homeless a possibility in Turlock

ANGELINA MARTIN

Updated:
July 9, 2019, 12:56 p.m.

Over a year after they were originally formed,
two of the Turlock City Council Homeless Ad Hoc Committees met with downtown
property owners, business operators and concerned citizens on Wednesday to
discuss potential solutions for the town’s ongoing — and growing — homeless
problem.

After publicly decrying downtown Turlock’s
plague of drug use, property damage, vandalism and more last May, business and
property owners alike formed a collaborative between themselves and City
officials that resulted in the creation of four ad hoc committees, meant to
address the myriad of problems that homelessness causes: Business &
Bathrooms, Housing, Outreach & Engagement and Jobs/Prevention.

This week, the City’s Homeless Ad Hoc
Committees on Business & Bathrooms and Housing, headed by Councilmembers
Andrew Nosrati and Becky Arellano, held a public meeting to seek input and
discuss potential strategies for increasing the city’s temporary shelter
options for the homeless. Taking cues from Modesto, both Nosrati and Arellano
have suggested Turlock construct a “tent village” for the homeless population,
and sought thoughts and ideas from those in attendance at the meeting, whether
positive or negative.

A potential tent village, or emergency shelter
expansion, would utilize state funding to provide an additional 150 beds for
the city’s homeless. There are currently 100 shelter beds in Turlock, although
the 2019 Stanislaus County point in time count recorded 245 homeless
individuals residing in the city.

The State of California mandates that cities
with inadequate shelter for the homeless population utilize emergency funding
to provide a place for them, Arellano said; if ignored, Turlock could miss out
on additional funds for low-income housing and other means to help the city’s
underserved population.

“We’re mandated to do something. We can’t just
sit back and let things happen willy-nilly as we have been doing,” Arellano
said during the meeting. “This isn’t something that I just conjured up in the
back of my mind to get everyone riled up — this is something that’s actually
state-funded.”

Whether Turlock will use that funding for a
tent village or another means of shelter is still to be determined, but a
number of community members attended Wednesday’s meeting to voice their
displeasure at the idea.

“There are some people that just say no. Now
for those, honestly just tell us what you want us to do as an alternative,”
Nosrati said. “If you have suggestions, we’re waiting for them. The town is
demanding action and if we continue to just sit back, we know that this problem
doesn’t get better. We have to do something.”

While few other options were suggested by
those in attendance during the meeting, worries in regards to sanitation at a
potential camp, security, access to services, proximity to downtown and the
possibility of an influx of transients from surrounding communities were
brought up.

“Do we have a reserve fund for all of the
lawsuits that are going to flood into the city when public officials and aid
workers catch medieval diseases from these types of camps?” asked Ken Lewis,
who manages a security company on Golden State Boulevard.

Lewis was referring to recent reports of
typhoid fever, typhus, hepatitis A, tuberculosis and staph in Los Angeles,
which are being contributed to the area’s large, concentrated homeless
populations.

Carr’s Cleaners owner Harry Boucher believes
giving the homeless a place to stay is unlikely to help at all.

“It’s just a visual Band-aid,” he said. “It’s
not going to fix the problem until we go after the real problem which is drugs,
alcohol and mental disability.”

No location has yet been chosen for a possible
tent village, although the corner of First and D streets next to the Turlock
Gospel Mission has been suggested.

“Proponents don't seem to understand that
homeless numbers are FLUID and constantly increasing. If the intention is to
develop a site that can accommodate 120-140 LOCAL homeless/transients, how will
the managers of said site identify/separate the organically grown ‘local’
homeless population from new arrivals/opportunistic transients?” Turlock Downtown Property Owners Association President Michael Camara writes
in the email. “We can predict the result with great accuracy: if you build for
120-140, far more will travel in from neighboring regions to utilize the camp.”

TDPOA Executive Director Molly Amant said during the meeting that she’s
spoken with 10 to 12 people who are homeless in Turlock’s Central Park, who
have traveled to the city from Modesto’s tent village, which is overcrowded, in
search of a tent here.

This concern, and the others mentioned, were written down by Nosrati and
Arellano to be relayed to City staff.

While many were opposed to the idea of a tent
village, some who see homeless encampments near their businesses welcomed the
idea of a more structured way of life for the transient population.

“On
Main Street they’re in your backyard, but on C Street and D Street they’re
living in our front yard...we know them, we’ve been with them and we get to
talk to them on a daily basis. Sometimes they’re on drugs and scary, sometimes
they’re really nice,” said Nick Hackler of Turlock Walnut Company. “Turlock
Walnut’s standpoint is that we don’t mind having them still in our front yard,
we just want it a little bit more organized...these people truly just want a
place to put their stuff.”

A second meeting, this time between the ad hoc
committees on Outreach & Engagement and Jobs/Prevention, led by
Councilmember Nicole Larson and Vice Mayor Gil Esquer, will be held at 2 p.m.
July 11 in the City Council Chambers at City Hall and is open to the community.
According to Arellano, input from both Wednesday as well as next week’s meeting
will be brought forth during a Special City Council Meeting on July 23, which
will feature a workshop discussion between council members but no action item.